Respighi - Ancient Airs and Dances / Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra Marriner

Ottorino Respighi (Artist), Neville Marriner (Artist), Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 25, 1990)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: EMI Classics
• ASIN: B000002RN9
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #87,992 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, July 10, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Respighi - Ancient Airs and Dances / Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra Marriner (Audio CD)

This is Respighi's retro phase--the music is peaceful, relaxing, and beautiful--everywhere simple and harmonious. The dotted-rythm cadences are especially pleasant. They are written for a small chamber ensemble, and are a delight to perform. All in all, these are some of the most underappreciated suites in all classical music.

31 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful Music., October 25, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Respighi - Ancient Airs and Dances / Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra Marriner (Audio CD)

Simply put, this is some of the most beautiful music one will ever hear! I enjoy Sir Neville Marriner's interpretation over others I have heard.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Respighi's Homage To The Distant Past, December 29, 2006

By 

Erik North (San Gabriel, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Respighi - Ancient Airs and Dances / Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra Marriner (Audio CD)

A master orchestrator who learned his craft from another master orchestrator (Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov), Ottorino Respighi was extremely well known in the early third of the last century for reviving old styles of music and making them into modern masterworks (e.g., he orchestrated a few of Bach's organ works). And perhaps the best example of Respighi paying homage to the distant past lies in the three orchestral suites, composed respectively in 1917, 1924, and 1932, that he titled "Ancient Airs And Dances For The Lute."

Based on dances composed by obscure Italian composers of the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, the Ancient Airs And Dances received perhaps their best recording here on this 1976 EMI release by the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and their then-Music Director Sir Neville Marriner, who served from the time of the orchestra's birth in 1969 up to 1978. Both Marriner and the L.A.C.O. navigate around Respighi's orchestral colorings quite well, especially with the uses of harp and harpsichord in all three suites, full string orchestra in the third suite, and the use of trombones and timpani in the coda to the "Bergamasca" that concludes the second suite.

A fine example of a modern 20th century orchestrator bringing back forms from three to four centuries past, the Ancient Airs And Dances are never anything less than interesting, and the same can certainly be said for this recording, even if it was made three decades ago.